WORK: sponge

“Nathaniel recalls his grandfather’s tales of toilet paper use; of how at times one could wipe and wipe and wipe after defecating with no indication of a progression toward cleanliness. Of course nowadays toilet paper has been replaced by superabsorbent synthetic sponges, which leave no trace of solid matter, nor liquid, nor even bacteria, upon their surfaces after wiping.”

2011. Ink on paper. 7 x 7 in.

This image-text pairing originally appeared on VerySmallKitchen as part of a 3-month online residency.

“The extreme absorbency of these sponges guarantees that they are perpetually sterile. For this reason, it is common practice to both wipe up household messes and clean one’s genital and anal territories using the same sponge.”

2011. Ink on paper. 7.5 x 7 in.

This image-text pairing originally appeared on VerySmallKitchen as part of a 3-month online residency.

“An individual need only possess a single sponge during the span of his or her lifetime. The sponges neither wear out nor diminish in absorbency. Most of the original models are still in circulation. Nathaniel inherited his from his father, who had previously acquired the sponge from Nathaniel’s grandfather. [ . . . ] The sponge compacts all that it absorbs into its core. Such is its efficiency that the area occupied by the compacted matter gains no measurable increase in volume during the course of a generation. Nathaniel envisions a future in which a sponge passed down a bloodline eventually accumulates, after many centuries, so much human detritus that it collapses into a shit singularity, and ultimately devours whole solar systems.”

2011. Ink on paper. 7 x 7.25 in.

This image-text pairing originally appeared on VerySmallKitchen as part of a 3-month online residency.

In the final installment of image-text pairings, Nathanial briefly glimpses what could well be a perpetual motion. This hint at the infinite occurs during the humiliating and perceptually almost-immeasurable duration of time that marks his arrival at the limits of his own technical and physical prowess. See the drawings and read their titles here.

ABOUT:
Lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. Primarily interested in the following: a) Visual and textual lines; b) the antiseptic tempered by a quiver of the handmade; and c) the diagrammatic and/or explanatory, especially when cloaked in ostensible self-importance without necessarily being true, serious business. Adherence to stringent procedural methods allows for an iterative exploration of the above concepts ad infinitum [read more].
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